


Trenchcoats and Waldo Hats

by Villainyandgoodcheekbones



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Les Mis AU, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 03:58:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Villainyandgoodcheekbones/pseuds/Villainyandgoodcheekbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of prompts and drabbles from the Trenchcoat  Brigade 'Verse. Wondering what the Waldo Hat is? Want some angst or some harassing of Courfeyrac? You came to the right place</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. On Sense, Reference, and Punching German Philosophers

Contrary to popular opinion, Combeferre is not actually Sherlock Holmes. He doesn’t actually have the ability to look at a piece of paper who say where it came from, or that person who wrote on it was a left-handed man with a naval history and a penchant for German opera, based on the sloping crossbar of  the “t” and the narrow-looped “l”. So when he finds the note inside a dog-eared book on Modern Legal Practice, he can’t say for certain who wrote it.

However, the number of people who  both  a) study law and b) are likely to make threats about punching German philosophers in the face is fairly limited, so he’s pretty sure it was Bahorel.  He slips the note into his pocket, and goes back to re-shelving, and the next time he runs into Bahorel at the Musain, Combeferre greets him with “Not a fan of Frege, then?”

“The man’s name is  fucking _Gottlob_ ” Bahorel says, as if that explains everything. “Somebody should hit him  just for  that. Also, he’s–”

“An asshole who fails to define the basic terms of his argument?”

“Exactly.”

Combeferre isn’t Sherlock Holmes, but he does notice things, like the way that Bahorel winces when Jehan begins reciting “Elegy in a County Churchyard” for Courfeyrac. He settles himself down in an empty and offers him a sympathetic half-smile across the table.

“In Russell’s defense, the Gray’s Elegy Argument is an important one, if poorly worded”

And Bahorel inhales slowly, laying his massive hands flat on the table with an awful deliberateness. “Do not,” he grits out “do _not_   talk to me about Bertrand _Fucking_ Russell!  Bertrand Russell is even more deserving of a fist to the face than Gottlob Frege. Alright, I understand, okay, that it’s an important argument to make, and he’s right the Frege’s absolute fucking failure to even _hint_ at what a “sense” might actually _be_ leads you down this infinite fucking regression. But. If the thesis to my PhD dissertation can legitimately be ‘what the fuck was Bertrand Russell talking about in the Gray’s Elegy argument’, then _it’s a shit argument!_ ”

There is sudden silence in the café as all eyes turn towards them. Bousset is the first person to speak. “What the hell,”  he begins “was tha– are you wearing _glasses_?” Bahorel glares over the top of the thick black frames and looms.

“Yes, I am. If it’s a problem, I can always spend a few hours beating the shit of _you_ , and we can see what _your_ vision’s like afterwards. I wear them when I’m reading, which, shockingly, is a thing I know how to do. Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell do you people think I do all day?” Perhaps unsurprisingly, nobody’s willing to answer. Combeferre arches one eyebrow with all the sarcasm he can muster and drawls “Any other Fathers of Logical Thought you’d like to violently assault?” Barohel purses his lips thoughtfully.

“Kant” he says. “Immanuel Kant is a bitch.”

Combeferre can’t bring himself to disagree.


	2. The Trench-coat Brigade Triumphant

Feuilly is the one who notices that they all have the same jacket, Grantaire is the one who dubs them the Trench-coat Brigade, and Bahorel is the one who takes Courfeyrac’s favourite pair of Ray Bans hostage, snatching them off his head and  holding them out of reach until he takes back that comment about the  goddamn Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. They’re better than that.

Also, it’s a stupid comparison, because they don’t share, each of them has his own, all of them black.

Feuilly wears his the most, so it’s faded noticeably paler than the others, shiny and threadbare at the elbows. There’s a bleach stain on one lapel in the exact shape of Poland, which he claims to have had _nothing_ to do with (he’s not lying; it was Grantaire, and it took him an hour with an X-acto knife to cut out the stencil because Poland has too many edges). Feuilly keeps it buttoned to his chin, belted tight against the cold.

Bahorel never buttons his at all, partly because Bahorel is a goddamn furnace, and partly because Bahorel leads the kind of life where “how much will this get in the way if I try to throw a punch while wearing it” is actually a significant decision-making factor. Not that he goes looking for fights, they just find him (he’s lying). He keeps the collar turned up, because he can.

Grantaire did _something_ to the inside of his, they’ve seen him smuggle a full handle of vodka tucked underneath it without a single visible trace. And that would make sense, except Grantaire’s is actually fitted ruthlessly tight and makes him look like a hard-up Romantic poet, or some kind of Victorian greaser. One of Byron’s college buddies, maybe. The absinthe helps.

The first time all three of them showed up at the Musain fully trench-coated, Courfeyrac called them “Enjolras’s Angels”, and they played keep-away with his phone for twenty minutes in retaliation.  Feuilly, it turned out, could climb. He hid it inside a light fixture, and Grantaire texted Courfeyrac “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” in its entirety, one stanza at a time, just to watch the shadows shudder on the floor as the phone buzzed. And also to watch Courfeyrac’s face. Bahorel still has the whole thing saved on video, and they will _never_ let Courfeyrac live it down.

Nobody fucks with the Trench-coat Brigade.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just angst.

Feuilly wakes, colder than usual, to the unmistakable sound of violence.

The punching bag isn’t a real punching bag, it’s a substitute cobbled together out of upholstery leather (Craigslist; they were giving away a couch), resin (stolen from the art department) and an old wrought-iron coat rack (also Craigslist). He wheedled Grantaire into helping him make it one weekend because:

1) Bahorel was a friend

2) It was said friend’s birthday

3) Like _hell_ was he going to let Bahorel put another hole in the drywall. The security deposit was half his, and there was _no fucking way_ he was going to go through that again. A man could not live on Ramen alone.

The punching bag isn’t a real punching bag, and isn’t designed to take the kind of abuse raining down on it. Feuilly can hear an ominous creaking over the sound of Bahorel’s harsh panting.

“It’s four in the morning. You need to stop.” and he lays a hand on Bahorel’s shoulder as the other man draws back his arm for another punch.  Feuilly doesn’t go out with Bahorel, that’s Grantaire, but he thinks to himself that those other bastards must be _terrified_ if this what he looks like, whirling around with an actual snarl written across his face, red-rimmed eyes and teeth and that scar across eyebrow that makes it look worse. And those poor fuckers don’t live with him, so they don’t get to see him pull his fist back, or watch the fight bleed out of his face and his hands.  Feuilly almost feels bad for them.

He also hopes that at least one of them mans up enough to get in a good hit, every once in a while, because Bahorel is an asshole sometimes, who snaps “Christ, the fuck are you doing?” as if it’s _Feuilly_ who’s done something wrong.

“Excuse _you_ , it’s four in the morning. The fuck are _you_ doing?”

And Bahorel says “Torts” as if that explains everything. “Torts are supposed to be, fuck, cake and fruit and shit, and I have been staring at them for six hours, and they’re _not._ They’re not cake.” He drags the heel of his hand across his eyes, shoulders slumped. “Shit.  Sorry, I just…”

There’s blood welling over the back of his hand, which Feuilly snatches with an exasperated sigh. “Again? Do you even _try_?”

“Oh fuck, does it matter? Who even cares?”

“I do.” It sounds frighteningly sincere, so Feuilly adds “You make all the coffee, and I don’t want you bleeding in it.”  Bahorel snorts, and tries to tug his hand free, but not really. And that’s the thing; he could easily get loose if he tried, which means he’s not trying, which means….

“Sit down.” Bahorel tries to protest, but not really, because it’s four in the morning, and Feuilly is addicted to caffeine and cigarettes, but doesn’t have any, and hasn’t in over eighteen hours. What he does have is India ink and Joly’s old anatomy books, which he threatens to utilize in drawing “dicks on everything you love. In graphic detail. You sleep like a train hit you, I could draw them on your face, and you’d never know, now sit.” And Bahorel sits, muttering in voice deliberately pitched to carry across the room how Feuilly would get sick of it before too long since he doesn’t even like dick, and Feuilly replies “I’ll make an exception, just for you.”

Then he winces.

God is merciful, it seems, because Bahorel says nothing in response. He only hisses softly through his teeth as Feuilly swabs his bloody knuckles with isopropyl and cotton balls. “You’re pathetic” Feuilly informs him, but rubs re-assuring circles against his wrist anyway as he holds Bahorel’s hand flat against his leg. “You planning on telling me what this is about now?”

Bahorel won’t meet his eyes. “I told you, I just–”

“Yeah, no. You didn’t do this because of some stupid papers.” This time, Bahorel is trying. He snatches his hands away like he’s been branded.

“The fuck do you know about it?”  he growls

Feuilly exhales slowly, _4…5…6…7…_

“Okay. I have to open in three hours. I’m going back to sleep.” The sheets have gone cold, and the last thing he sees is Bahorel in his sweat-soaked wife-beater and his stupid red-and-white striped beanie (it’s a fucking _Waldo hat_ , Feuilly), staring fixedly at the wall.  The drywall is a slightly different shade over the place where the hole used to be.

Feuilly wakes, warmer than he expected, to the unmistakable weight of an arm across his chest. The feeling of someone else’s breath and someone else’s stubble against his neck is warm and familiar. The sudden drop of water sliding down the curve of his jaw, salty when it hits the corner of his mouth is also warm, but it’s nothing he’s ever felt before. It’s wrong.  Feuilly says noting, but he presses himself backwards into Bahorel and wraps one hand around the arm across chest.

At 7:15, Feuilly steals Bahorel’s phone, then calls in sick.


	4. Sharp-Dressed Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a tumblr post
> 
> “modern au bahorel being dressed up really nice in a crisp white shirt and perfectly ironed black pants and a suit coat and a nice black silk tie and cuff-links and getting in a fight and coming to one of the Amis’ meetings late with his white shirt splattered with blood and half unbuttoned and his tie undone and one of his cuff-links missing and a bloody nose and just walks in and grins”

Bahorel owns exactly one suit, a black three-piece with charcoal pinstripes that makes him look “actually acceptable, for once in your life” according to Courfeyrac, and “like an Eastern-European hit-man” according to Grantaire. “Seriously, you look like you’re about to slam a guy against the wall and demand to know where Jason Bourne is, no, don’t you fucking dare, put me down, put me _down._ ”

It’s not like they haven’t seen him wear it before, it’s just he wears it so rarely that they forget. But today is a debate day, he _is_ working his way (slowly, under immense protest) through a law degree, and debate days are only part of it he actually fucking likes. They always underestimate him; big guy with a butterfly bandage holding his eyebrow together, they think he must be stupid, until he calls them out on a technicality and logic-punches them in the _face_. “Your Honor, the precedent set by Jones v. Davidson in 1978 clearly shows …” One-hit K.O, thank you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

Bahorel likes debate days, and debate days call for a suit. He’s not stupid enough to try make it all the way to campus from his apartment wearing it though, so he darts into the Musain, and comes out of the bathroom, jacket sharp and pants pressed, swearing at his cufflinks. Grantaire wolf-whistles in the midst of tipping something into his coffee, and Feuilly moves to brush some invisible speck of dust off the jacket before remembering that he’s  still indigo up to the elbows from yesterday and backing away with a sheepish grin.

Courfeyrac slips him ten bucks, because that’s the agreement: if Bahorel ever wears something that “doesn’t make me want to dig my eyes out with a spoon” (even though Jehan would never let him try), Courfeyrac owes him a twenty.  It’s only ten today, because of some bullshit involving tying the wrong knot in his tie, but really, who the fuck other than Courfeyrac even knows that there’s more than one way?

The only thing better, really, than making Courfeyrac give him money is making Courfeyrac nearly faint, staggering back and clutching the counter for support when he comes back later with a bloody nose, tie hanging in shreds from his crooked collar and cufflinks long gone. He’s pretty sure that nobody knows what the fuck that grimy stuff is all over the streets, but whatever it is, it’s spattered his pants up to the knee. There’s a rip in the seam of one shoulder like a gaping wound. Courfeyrac stares.

“What did you _do?_ Where do you even _find_ a fight at 7:30 on a Tuesday?” He groans despairingly as Bahorel examines his miraculously white left sleeve, the one part of the ensemble not yet ruined, and uses it to staunch the blood-flow running down over his mouth and chin.

Bahorel grins.

“I am Jack’s ruined suit” he declares.


	5. Moskvich 403E

The sheer number of cigarettes he smoked could have single-handedly kept a tobacco plantation in business. He could have controlled an entire state penitentiary from the inside. He could have bought a car in a Soviet Russia.  Not a particularly _good_ car, but still. Feuily smoked a _lot._ And it wasn’t like he didn’t know they were bad for him; the first thing that Feuilly taught himself to read was “WARNING:  the Surgeon General advises […]”.

 Well, no. Strictly speaking, that was the second thing. The first was Hans Christen Andersen. The point was, he knew how bad they were; every single cigarette was always the last one.  His hand to God, it was the absolute last.  He would quit, and it would save him so much money, he could buy a car in Soviet Russia. Not a particularly _good_ car, but still.  It was just he used to get so _cold_ and the smoke was warm and it was easier to ask for a light than it was to beg for charity. He still had his pride.

Feuilly woke up coughing sometimes, gasping around the rattle in his lungs.  And he would feel awful about it, because it would wake up Bahorel, too and every time Feuilly flinched and tried to choke out an apology but his shoulders shook too hard and the words wouldn’t come out. Bahorel just draped an arm across his collarbone and tugged Feuilly against his broad chest and held him steady until it stopped. Bahorel was warm.  It was like sleeping with a space heater, if a space-heater was six and a half feet of muscle and tattoos and smelled like Old Spice and old blood (Bahorel never remembered to tape his hands up; his knuckles were beyond saving).

They weren’t “sleeping with each other”, they just slept together and if sometimes Feuilly felt a heat in the pit of his stomach that had nothing to do with how warm Bahorel was, but everything to do with how close he was, and how his stubble rasped against Feuilly’s skin when he stirred in his sleep…

He kept the heat off in the apartment. It saved on the utilities bill, anyway.

Bahorel was warm, and he left coffee and cinnamon gum on every flat surface but only ever touched half of everything. Feuilly cut down to a pack a day, unless Legia Warsaw was playing, in which case all bets were off.

For his end-of-semester project, Feuilly spent hours and hours staring at schematics until his eyes were red and gritty. He painted, in minute detail, the skeleton of a 1951 Moskvich 403E.  The painting was eerily beautiful. The car…

It wasn’t a particularly _good_ car. But still.

 


	6. Aequitas, Veritas

Grantaire already has “Veritas” written down the side of his hand, and is putting the finishing touches on “Aequitas” down the side of Bahorel’s when Feuilly walks in. He fixes them both with a disbelieving stare.

 “ _Really?”_ And he’s about to say more, but Grantaire looks up from his pen and cuts him off with “Shepards we shall be, for Thee, my Lord for Thee”, joined halfway through by Bahorel, both of them speaking in a desperately mangled brogue. Feuilly snorts, fishing out a cigarette.

 “You’re not even Irish” he mutters.

 “It’s St. Patrick’s Day! Everybody’s Irish tonight!” Grantaire crows gleefully. And Feuilly glares again, lighter in hand.

 “Quote that movie one more time, and I will set you on fire”. The first rush of nicotine into his lungs is actually all the salvation he needs, really, and it’s so good that his eyes flutter half-closed, so he almost dosen’t see Bahorel staring to look him over. Almost. One freckled hand flies up, indicating the defensive smear of green paint on his cheek. “Don’t even, I’m safe.” It’s a lesson Feuilly leanred the hard way: if you’re not green on St. Patrick’s Day, you’ll be green a week later when the bruises start fading (Grantaire, and Bahorel especially, have a very loose concept of what consitutes a ‘pinch’)

 Bahorel falls back, pouting “Killjoy”, but there’s a smirk hidden underneath. Grantaire, hanging on Bahorel’s arm, grins like a loon, sharpie tucked behind one ear.

 “Oh come on, it’s _your day_. You were _born_ for this.” Grantaire pauses for effect “By which I mean to say that, as a ginger, it is your sworn and scared duty to impersonate an Irishman so as to obtain for us free drinks and the company of sundry attractive persons.”

 Feuilly takes a long drag of his cigarette, considering.

Well….

“Touche.”

Grantaire cocks an eyebrow up. “Nope, French. Swim the channel then keep going, and you’re golden.” Bahorel laughs and Graintaire yelps as Feuilly’s lighter connects with his ear.

 It’s only when the three of them are out the door and halfway down the street that it occurs to Feuilly to ask “Are there  even any bars that’ll still let us in on St. Patrick’s Day?”

 There aren’t. Not after what happened last year. And the the year before that. And…but no, they don’t talk about that one anymore. _Ever._

 But who knows, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, right? Maybe they’ll get lucky.


End file.
